Business travel?

[HazelAnne]

How much travel for work do you feel like is too much? I’d be curious to hear your experiences from both the perspective of having a spouse who travels and having a parent who travels.

Dh is looking at jobs that require more travel than we are use to…wondering the impact on the family. 
 

Thanks!

Edited July 27 by HazelAnne
Removed info that may have swayed answers.

[Katy]

I really feel like this depends on the family & needs of the kids. When my youngest son was younger he needed a lot of Dad time. But now as long as he understands the plan he does fine with dad being away. I think FaceTime helps a lot. My other kids pretty much want me. 

[mommyoffive]

14 hours ago, Katy said:

I really feel like this depends on the family & needs of the kids. When my youngest son was younger he needed a lot of Dad time. But now as long as he understands the plan he does fine with dad being away. I think FaceTime helps a lot. My other kids pretty much want me. 

Yes.

How old are your kids?  How many do you have? 

Do you work outside the house?

Do you have a lot of outside commitments? 

Dh has almost always traveled for work.  It is hard for me no matter the age of the kids, just different ways.  But I can see the kids being older and having close to home commitments or not any at all and it would be so much easier. 

Also how long is the travel for?  Is it for only for a set amount of times like the next six months?  And how long are the trips?  D

 

Then do you have support around you?  And what is your own temperament?   Can you handle long periods of time being the only parent around?  

 

I hate when dh travels.

 

Edited July 27 by mommyoffive

[Arcadia]

It would depends on the age of the kids. I was traveling a lot for work pre-kids and it was a free way to fly to many countries and be a tourist during the weekends. My husband’s business travels after kids were majority places we could drive to so they were free road trips for the family. To my kids, their dad’s business trips were just like work with the added benefit of getting to tour places.
To them, his flying back to our country of origin was what they care about. It makes them used to him being gone for weeks at a time.

Edited July 27 by Arcadia
Typo

[Spryte]

This really varies by family and stage of life.

Does your spouse already travel, and how does that impact you/your family?

IME, smallish increases are no big deal, but big leaps can be a shock.

FaceTime and calls help but we always have a large time difference and the kids’ schedules don’t always work to connect with DH’s. It’s hit or miss.

Growing up, both of my parents traveled periodically for work and it was no big deal. We were not a very close family. There was one period when I really, deeply missed one parent when they had to travel, but overall, I didn’t question it, you know? It was just our life. One parent traveled more than the other, and we are not close now, FWIW, but that might have happened anyway.

Edited July 27 by Spryte

[Bootsie]

Work-related travel can look very different from job-to-job.  52 nights of travel can be one night per week every week, or it can be a week-long trip each month.  It can be predictable--always traveling on Thursday night or always traveling the first two days of the month--or it can be last-minute and unpredictable.  It can be flexible--I have to see this client sometime in the next month, when does that work in the family schedule--or rigid.  Is it car travel? Plane travel? Travel to the same places?  What is the work schedule like when not traveling?  Can family members join in the travel from time-to-time?  

DH's father had periods in his career that he traveled extensively.  DH says he noticed his father's absence more when they lived in locations where his father had a long daily commute than during the periods when his father was traveling a lot  

[HazelAnne]

To answer the questions:

Travel would be for about 3 weeks each month. He would be home on the weekends. 
We are a largish family, homeschool, and kids are all in middle & high school. We are a close family, and he’d have to cut back on his involvement in the kids activities. 

In the past when he traveled, I hated it.  Now that the kids are older, I don’t mind much, but it’s never been very frequent.

Hypothetically, we could join him occasionally, but the kids schedules are so busy it’s unlikely. 

[Carrie12345]

9 hours ago, HazelAnne said:

How much travel for work do you feel like is too much? I’d be curious to hear your experiences from both the perspective of having a spouse who travels and having a parent who travels.

Dh is looking at jobs that require more travel than we are use to…wondering the impact on the family. 
 

Thanks!

For us, it simply was what it was. Like some families are accustomed to 12hr shifts, overnight schedules, or 9-5 offices, dh’s travel was just how our life looked.

I might say there were years when it was “too much” for us as a family, but it wasn’t “too much” to expect from the work he was hired to do. Our kids never knew any different.

For ME, it was VERY hard when the kids were little. Now it isn’t hard in the same way. I do still have to be able to take care of *everything* at any moment’s notice whether for a day or several weeks. General stuff, financial, legal, events, maintenance, repairs, projects, emergencies… It isn’t as bad with independent kids. I will say dh is probably *less independent, because I control most aspects of our life rather than repeatedly shifting in and out of different responsibilities.

[Starr]

Three weeks a month sounds like separate lives. He gets home in time to rush about and leave again. For me it would be too much. 

[Bootsie]

I didn't have a job where I "traveled" but I took a job that required a 275 mile commute while we had one child who had two years left in high school (homeschooled). It worked for us because:  DH and I shared homeschooling responsibilities; DS was taking several dual enrollment courses; we were able to block much of my portion of homeschool responsibilities to weeks when I was off; we knew there was an end-date to the situation; we rented a house near my job--I was not living out of a suitcase and in and out of various hotels all week  I was able to cook meals, sleep in my own bed, do laundry while I was "traveling"; In many ways the situation was less stressful and less tiring than when I was working in the city where we lived but had a stressful commute every day

[QueenCat]

Dh used to travel about 50% of the time. Now it's more like 10% of the time. It was important to his career path, so worth it to us. 

[*LC]

4 hours ago, HazelAnne said:

To answer the questions:

Travel would be for about 3 weeks each month. He would be home on the weekends. 
We are a largish family, homeschool, and kids are all in middle & high school. We are a close family, and he’d have to cut back on his involvement in the kids activities. 

In the past when he traveled, I hated it.  Now that the kids are older, I don’t mind much, but it’s never been very frequent.

Hypothetically, we could join him occasionally, but the kids schedules are so busy it’s unlikely. 

My husband has worked this type of job, but much of time kids were younger and we could join more than you would be able to 

One suggestion I would make is to ask if he could work 4 days on site and either Monday or Friday remotely. That extra day at home for kid's activities was huge. 

[Spryte]

7 hours ago, HazelAnne said:

To answer the questions:

Travel would be for about 3 weeks each month. He would be home on the weekends. 
We are a largish family, homeschool, and kids are all in middle & high school. We are a close family, and he’d have to cut back on his involvement in the kids activities. 

In the past when he traveled, I hated it.  Now that the kids are older, I don’t mind much, but it’s never been very frequent.

Hypothetically, we could join him occasionally, but the kids schedules are so busy it’s unlikely. 

Would this be a permanent change?

I think it’s really up to the two of you, and your tolerance level.

Also, if you try it for a year, can you change it relatively easily?

Whatever you decide, I hope it works well for your family! 

Edited July 27 by Spryte

[HazelAnne]

3 hours ago, Starr said:

 

Three weeks a month sounds like separate lives. He gets home in time to rush about and leave again. For me it would be too much. 

 

This is what we’re concerned about. Especially as the kids might start going away to college over the next couple years, he doesn’t want to miss this time with them. 

[HazelAnne]

It would be a permanent change. Dh lost his job, and was initially applying for jobs that had minimal travel, or at least under 50%. He’s now applied for jobs with more travel, and a position he is getting more serious about is this one with a lot of travel. 
We both agree travel wouldn’t be ideal for our family…but neither is unemployment. 

[Spryte]

Oh, I need to amend my above post then. If the question is no employment vs 3 weeks a month travel — then we would make that work. No question.

I’m sorry about the job loss, and hope he finds something that works for everyone soon!

[prairiewindmomma]

3 minutes ago, HazelAnne said:

It would be a permanent change. Dh lost his job, and was initially applying for jobs that had minimal travel, or at least under 50%. He’s now applied for jobs with more travel, and a position he is getting more serious about is this one with a lot of travel. 
We both agree travel wouldn’t be ideal for our family…but neither is unemployment. 

Dh did this level of travel for a couple of years when our kids were ages 3-14, and it was survivable but not wonderful. We essentially had separate lives, with dh home on weekends. He never really fit back into the rhythm of our daily lives….but this aspect was really about dh.

Dh is looking at this level of travel again, for the same reasons you are, and we are willing to consider it for a few years. I think we are hitting close to the bottom of the tech bust cycle and we should be definitively climbing our way out in a year.

We’ve created a family group chat, and we’re handling a few aspects of things differently. IMO, it’s a completely different ball game when your kids are teens and older.

[HazelAnne]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Dh is looking at this level of travel again, for the same reasons you are, and we are willing to consider it for a few years. I think we are hitting close to the bottom of the tech bust cycle and we should be definitively climbing our way out in a year.

Hope your Dh is able to find something that is a good fit soon!

[Laura Corin]

6 hours ago, HazelAnne said:

To answer the questions:

Travel would be for about 3 weeks each month. He would be home on the weekends. 
We are a largish family, homeschool, and kids are all in middle & high school. We are a close family, and he’d have to cut back on his involvement in the kids activities. 

In the past when he traveled, I hated it.  Now that the kids are older, I don’t mind much, but it’s never been very frequent.

Hypothetically, we could join him occasionally, but the kids schedules are so busy it’s unlikely. 

That's quite a lot of travel. My husband weekly commuted for a couple of years - he was in Hong Kong during the week and flew home to us in Mainland China at weekends.  It was okay but the weekends felt unnatural  - as if we were relearning each week how to be a family. The kids were younger though.

[mommyoffive]

With the added info I would do it no question.   Take the job and then keep applying for jobs with less travel, so hopefully it is a short term thing.  Any job is better than no job.   

[SKL]

I think the family can get used to it.

If there are any kids who seem to particularly need dad ... for instance, say dad is the main disciplinarian for some because they don't listen as well to mom ... you will want to figure out how to bridge that gap.

Lots of kids have less time with their dad than you are describing.  Some have zero.  And like you said, unemployment isn't really a viable alternative.

[athena1277]

The length of each trip is important to me.  When dh was in the military, he had 2 4 month deployments.  That was too long.  At a job a few years ago, he had several trips that were about 3 weeks each.  That was only a problem when he was gone at the beginning of the Covid shutdowns and almost got stuck overseas for months.

Having family, friends, or church group that will help if you need it is also very important.

[Bambam]

My dh traveled a lot when our two kids were little. Missed several birthdays. Missed injuries. Missed life with them. He was often gone 3 weeks at a time and in a place I could not get in touch with him, and at that time, only had one flight out per week, so not really able to return if there was a huge emergency. We had no local family, but we did have local friends and church family. It worked as I'm pretty independent and capable. The rule we had was if I had to make decisions (aka buy a new dishwasher) while he was gone, he was not allowed to criticize my decisions at all. Normally this would be a combined thing, but if something breaks while he was half-way around the globe and unreachable, sometimes you had to do something. 

So really it depends upon if you can handle his travel. It was always an adjustment when he returned home. He was rarely home long before he had to leave again. Thankfully that was a relatively short time (looking back now, but it didn't seem like it at the time!). You do what you have to do to make it work. 

[wintermom]

23 hours ago, HazelAnne said:

It would be a permanent change. Dh lost his job, and was initially applying for jobs that had minimal travel, or at least under 50%. He’s now applied for jobs with more travel, and a position he is getting more serious about is this one with a lot of travel. 
We both agree travel wouldn’t be ideal for our family…but neither is unemployment. 

That's a lot of travel, but he can always go through the application process and potenially negotiate a slightly better situation. Also, if he does get the position, then he may be in a better position to transition to something else with less travel. 

All the best with him finding a job! It's so stressful, particularly with a family to support.

[HazelAnne]

6 hours ago, wintermom said:

but he can always go through the application process and potenially negotiate a slightly better situation.

That’s a great point! We were considering saying he’s no longer interested- but it certainly can’t hurt to try to negotiate instead if he gets the offer. 

[KungFuPanda]

On 7/27/2024 at 6:04 AM, HazelAnne said:

To answer the questions:

Travel would be for about 3 weeks each month. He would be home on the weekends. 
We are a largish family, homeschool, and kids are all in middle & high school. We are a close family, and he’d have to cut back on his involvement in the kids activities. 

In the past when he traveled, I hated it.  Now that the kids are older, I don’t mind much, but it’s never been very frequent.

Hypothetically, we could join him occasionally, but the kids schedules are so busy it’s unlikely. 

Yikes. I think one week a month is a lot. With 3 weeks he’s missing out on the last years some of them are home. Unless he has to do this to feed everyone or secure retirement, I’d save this particular commitment for when you’re empty nesters or maybe for when you have fewer kids at home so there’s less to miss. Can he wait 4-5 years? That time with the kids matters so much. 

[HazelAnne]

29 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

With 3 weeks he’s missing out on the last years some of them are home. Unless he has to do this to feed everyone or secure retirement, I’d save this particular commitment for when you’re empty nesters or maybe for when you have fewer kids at home so there’s less to miss

That’s what we’re afraid of- missing their last years at home. He lost his job, so he does need a new one to feed everyone. But we are okay for a little while longer for him to keep looking, but also don’t want to assume that he’ll find something in the next few months that is a better fit, and have spent the rest of our savings while he looks. 

[KungFuPanda]

51 minutes ago, HazelAnne said:

That’s what we’re afraid of- missing their last years at home. He lost his job, so he does need a new one to feed everyone. But we are okay for a little while longer for him to keep looking, but also don’t want to assume that he’ll find something in the next few months that is a better fit, and have spent the rest of our savings while he looks. 

With no job and college looming I’d probably change my answer to taking the job that pays the bills and only keeping it until he can secure something local or with less travel. It’s easier to find a job when you HAVE a job.